If you take a peek inside a college students' backpack, in many cases you will find that smartphones, tablets, portable computers and e-readers have long since replaced more traditional essentials such as notebooks, pencils and textbooks.

It is undeniable that Haiti needs -- and deserves -- a functional and dignified solution that provides the major tools to combat diarrheal disease -- clean water, primary healthcare, and clean waste. This is not a Haitian problem: It is a global one.

Daniel Alpert makes a compelling case that the U.S. and the world are stuck in a serious crisis of insufficient demand. Alpert is focused on the government spending route to restoring full employment, which is great, but this is not the only possible route.

How do we build our urban centers so that we are both climate resilient and able to keep up with our growing population? How can we engage our communities and urbanites while we build the green job economy that holds such promise?

What kind of financing opportunities could result for infrastructure from the combination of natural resource abundance, governments' lack of capital market access, and weak governance environments? As it turns out, quite a few.

Last week, Rahm Emanuel announced the city was putting a halt to the long-running negotiations to privatize Midway Airport. The long-term lease had long been trumpeted as an opportunity to modernize the airport and help stabilize city finances but the mayor decided the deal just wasn't good enough.

Yesterday in a meeting, a colleague asked about what will be needed after the conflict in Syria, what we could help with. I looked down. I was thinking, there's not much we can do if the infrastructure of the country is wiped out.

For millions of kids, it's time to head back into the classroom where the average public school building in the United States is over 40 years old, and many are much older. Our children are bearing the brunt of these crumbling buildings.

Hyperloop's biggest obstacle is the ever-growling Cerberus of the people's pocketbook: a dollar-sniffing watchdog with the three heads of public resistance, legislative reluctance, and administrative recalcitrance. Sneaking a good idea past this hell hound is a Heraclean task.

In accepting the gross income inequality, obscene wealth gap, inexcusable corporate excesses, and blatant political corruption that we do today, we are already laying the groundwork for a real-world Elysium.

International long-term private finance to developing countries has changed dramatically in the wake of the global financial crisis. In such a context, it is no surprise that the creation/expansion of national and multilateral development banks has been getting so much attention.

Proactively instituting innovative water purification techniques and continuing to study and develop new processes will ensure safe, clean drinking water for generations to come, and private water companies are helping lead the way.